Approximately 300 junior high school students from across the area visited the Texas A&M College of Architecture’s solar-powered home Nov. 5 at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum.
The deluge of young visitors in College Station for Aggie Polar Palooza event, held as part of a national Polar Palooza program funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA to raise awareness on the effect of global warming on Earth’s polar regions, as well as the challenges of doing scientific research in such inhospitable environments.
Many of the students proclaimed they would be able to live comfortably in the home, walking through it after Leslie Feigenbaum, the college’s assistant dean for undergraduate studies, gave the students a brief overview of the structure.
The award-winning Aggie groHome was originally erected in October 2007 on the Washington Mall during the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon competition in which 20 teams of college students from across the United States and Europe competed to design, build and operate the most attractive and energy efficient solar-powered house.
Each project home was evaluated on its ability to generate electricity, charge an electric car, maintain thermal comfort, address a well-defined market, and other criteria, such as “curb appeal.”
The Aggie groHome garnered first place honors from the American Institute of Architecture Students and the American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment, winning the Student Choice Award. The groHome also took top honors in the Student Building Category in the Lifecycle Building Challenge sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency at the 2007 West Coast Green Conference in San Francisco.
